India, Pak fail to ink pact on new liberalised visa regime

Islamabad/New Delhi: India and Pakistan today failed to sign an agreement on a new liberalised visa regime during the Home Secretary-level talks, with Islamabad saying that it wants it to be done at the political level. The signing of the pact has been postponed, Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters after meeting visiting Home Secretary of India, R K Singh and his delegation in Islamabad. [caption id=“attachment_321530” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The agreement involves important issues and should be finalised at the political level, he said.”] [/caption] Pakistan had decided in principle to sign the agreement on the new liberalised visa regime with India but the pact would not be signed in the current talks, Malik said. The agreement involves important issues and should be finalised at the political level, he said. In New Delhi, Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai attributed the failure of the signing of the agreement to “some delay in the procedure” in Pakistan and its Interior Minister’s desire for political participation in the exercise. India had gone to the Home Secretary-level talks in Islamabad “fully prepared” to sign the visa agreement as per the decision taken during the discussion between Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in April this year, he told reporters. But “we also have reports that the Pakistani side referred to some delay in its procedure and the Pakistan Interior Minister’s desire for political participation” in signing of the visa pact, Mathai said. “Both sides had attached a lot of importance on signing the visa agreement”, he added. Ahead of the talks, Indian officials had said the two sides had given the finishing touches to a new relaxed visa regime that would for the first time include tourist visas, visas on arrival for senior citizens and children and year- long multiple-entry visas for businessmen. PTI